


A Short Ride in A Fast Machine

by Captain_Ammy



Series: Degrees of Isolation one-shots [3]
Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: F/M, Papyrus can't drive, Papyrus is trans, Papyrus terrorizes his brothers not-gf
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-21
Updated: 2017-11-21
Packaged: 2019-02-05 05:27:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,672
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12788001
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Captain_Ammy/pseuds/Captain_Ammy
Summary: Another one-shot from my failed story series.Papyrus decides to take his brother's belle on a ride in his swanky new car. Although Conarith hates cars, she obliges, which turns out to be her first mistake.





	A Short Ride in A Fast Machine

Conarith hated automobiles with a passion.

To be fair, she thought that the idea of a personal automatic transportation device was a phenomenal invention. If such vehicles existed in her world, she could only imagine how much more connected the otherwise starkly divided regions of her world would have been.

But that did not mean that she had to like the damnable things. They were a blitz of screeching, barely-controllable metal and glass and one would be a fool to get inside one, let alone with Papyrus as the driver, or rather, _Paprika_.

Paprika.

What could be said about her?

No one really knew what to make of Papyrus’ new identity. At first, it was just a ploy to get Conarith to be more comfortable around her new monster friends. Undyne had invited her over to watch anime with her, Alphys, and Papyrus. When she jokingly called it a “girl’s night out, plus Paps”, Papyrus, not wanting to be out of place, insisted on wearing a wig and a dress and pretended to be a girl for the day. Normally, it would have been a typical Papyrus-incident that everyone would have laughed off and then never thought of again.

But then he kept doing it.

He started to claim that some days he felt like being a girl, and other days he felt like being a boy. On his girl days, he wore his feminine clothes and even came up with a new name: Paprika. At first, Paprika was pretty much exactly like Papyrus, only with a falsetto and in a dress. But lately, she really came into her own.

Paprika was still loud and flamboyant like Papyrus, but was notably more subdued. One could even argue that she was more self-aware than her male counterpart. She worked on her voice with some coaching from Sans to gain a more typical, female-coded sound. With the help of Undyne, she created a whole new body that was slender and curvaceous so that her dresses fit more naturally on her otherwise rail-thin frame. She even wore false eyelashes.

Sans loved and supported his sibling through everything, so he was not overly troubled by this dramatic new transformation. But he, along with everyone else, was having difficulty adjusting to it. Misgendering and dead-naming happened more often than Paprika liked.

Conarith, whom already had a hard time wrapping her head around Frisk’s non-binarism, was completely baffled by this idea. Such things were just unheard of on her world. And if it did happen on her world, she certainly did not know of it.

Even so, everyone tried to be supportive and respectful.

“Paprika! Would you please watch the road?” Conarith exclaimed in terror.

She did not understand how she found herself in this situation. One minute, she was lounging in the house and minding her own business, and the next, she was thrown into the passenger’s seat of Paprika’s car, which was currently careening through traffic on the highway to Serendipity City. Needless to say, she was not a happy camper.

“Do not worry yourself, Human Princess!” Paprika exclaimed as she zoomed around a slower car that had gotten in front of them. “I am extensively trained in operating the Flair Force One; you are in most capable hands!”

“Stop looking at me when you speak!” Conarith demanded. “You’ll kill us both!”

“You need to learn to relax,” said Paprika nonchalantly. “You’re so high-strung!”

Conarith took umbrage with that, but before she could open her mouth to speak, Paprika continued.

“But never mind that,” she said. “You may be wondering why I kidnapped you.”

Conarith rolled her eyes. “Oh yes, I had almost forgotten about that.”

“I’m not sure how you could; it just happened five minutes ago,” said Paprika incredulously. She shrugged. “No matter! I just wanted to talk to you about my brother.”

“Sans?” Conarith asked. “What about him?”

Paprika sighed. “You know, Human Princess, my brother has always been a pretty weird guy. I love and care for him very much, but this is still the truth. He is strange.”

Conarith could not help but to giggle at that.

“Oh, Paprika, no!” she teased. “I _cannot_ believe you would say such a thing about your own brother!”

“But, it’s ok!” said Paprika, completely passing over the joke. “It’s ok because you, too, are strange!”

Conarith was completely taken aback. “What? Me? Strange! Surely, you jest, Paprika.”

“You two can be strange together,” Paprika replied.

At this point, Conarith was sure that she was being ignored on purpose, so she said nothing.

Paprika beamed at Conarith. “You may not realize, but you’ve made him so happy!”

Conarith rubbed her arm bashfully. “Have I? Well, I– Paprika, look out!”

Paprika sharply applied the brakes to narrowly avoid hitting the car that had just cut in front of them.

“Never fear, Human Princess! The danger has passed!” she assured her panicked passenger.

Conarith was far too busying trying to force down her heart that had leapt into her throat to speak.

“Anyway,” Paprika continued, “as I said before, you make Sans very happy, which is why I wanted to talk to you today.”

“I believe I have just lost about a quarter of my life,” Conarith moaned, her hand placed firmly over her left breast in an attempt to calm her wildly beating heart.

“Nonsense! You’re still at full HP; you’re fine!” Paprika informed her.

Conarith once again just rolled her eyes; Paprika was far too literal for her tastes.

“Back to my brother,” said Paprika. Her expression turned quite sullen, much to Conarith’s alarm. “You know, there was a point when Sans wasn’t very happy at all.”

“Oh?” Conarith inquired.

Paprika nodded. “Oh, yes. He always swore to me that he was ok, but I’m more observant than he thinks I am. I wish I knew why he was so upset, but he never would tell me.”

Paprika paused for a while to collect her thoughts. Conarith just sat silently and waited for her to continue.

“I know he cares about me and he trusts me, but sometimes I wish he would trust me with these things,” she confessed. She smiled, but it did not reach her eye sockets. “I know he’s just trying to protect me, though. He’s always been such a good brother.”

“Oh, Paprika,” said Conarith sympathetically. “I am sure that–”

“Which is why I must protect him,” Paprika interrupted, her smile gone.

A shiver ran down Conarith’s spine at her words.

“You must understand, Conarith,” said Paprika, her voice more serious than Conarith had ever known it to be. And her name! She had said her name for the first time since she had come to this world! “I am not accusing you of anything. I am not angry with you, and I have absolutely nothing against you. In fact, I like you very much! I think you’re perfect for Sans; I don’t remember the last time I’ve seen him so excited to be with someone.”

“Th– Thank you,” Conarith stammered, suddenly nervous. “That means a lot to me coming from you. Truly.”

Paprika nodded cordially once, but then said, “Still, Sans is my brother and I will protect him from anyone. Even from you. If you ever hurt him, I would be so disappointed in you.”

Conarith face grew ashen, but she remained quiet. She just focused on the road ahead.

“Do not be upset,” said Paprika. “As I said, I do like you. But I need you to promise me that you will not hurt my brother. He may not seem like it, but he’s very fragile.”

Conarith’s eyes wavered. “Paprika, I would never. I care about Sans very much; how could I ever hurt him?”

“I believe you,” said Paprika. Suddenly, the car lurched forward.

“Pap– Paprika?” Conarith cried. She looked around frantically. “What are you doing? You are going too fast!”

“You know, I’ve always wondered how fast this thing can go,” Paprika said calmly. She grinned at Conarith, but something seemed off about her expression. “Let’s find out!”

Conarith shrieked as Paprika barreled down the highway. She was going so fast that she missed the exit for the city bridge.

“Paprika!” Conarith cried.

“I know that you and my brother do not always see eye-to-eye,” Paprika shouted over the noise of her engine and the wind, “but he’s a good person!”

Conarith just looked at her with bewilderment. Has she gone utterly mad?

“He’s all I have in this world!” Paprika continued. “I’ll never have another brother! Don’t you understand?”

“Yes, yes, I understand!” Conarith cried. “I really do, but please, for the love of all things sacred, slow down!” She noticed that the speedometer was currently at 90/145 and climbing.

“Please, continue to make my brother happy, Human Princess!” Paprika said.

Conarith nodded frantically. “I will! I will! Please!”

“Do you promise?” Paprika asked.

“I swear on the life of everyone I ever knew, I’ll make your brother happier than he has ever been and ever will be!” Conarith screamed. “Now please, STOP THIS CAR!”

Finally satisfied, Paprika removed her foot from the gas and allowed it to return to a more manageable speed before moving into the emergency lane and applying the brakes. When they came to a full stop, Conarith immediately fell over herself in her attempt to exit the vehicle.

“I’m so glad we had this little chat; I feel like our friendship has grown tenfold!” Paprika exclaimed proudly. “I hope you forgive me for saying so, but you and Sans would make such a wonderful couple!”

She furrowed her brows when Conarith did not respond.

“Human Princess?” she called. She looked over to see that her passenger was a crumpled, twitching, gasping heap on the pavement. “Why are you on the ground?”

Conarith did not believe in God, but with Them as her witness, she swore that she would believe if after today, she would never have to step foot near this infernal machine and its insane driver ever again.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you all enjoy my primal hallucinatory nightma...I mean my stories! Please comment if you can, and as always, I'm critique-friendly and critique-starved.


End file.
